Mythological Stories

[Woodengolem]

So I'm working on creating a new campaign setting and I'm looking for some feedback on an issue I'm running into.

I have the full mythology written up and figured out. What god does what to who and in what order. But I'm finding myself curious as to what sort of mythological stories people find interesting and/or important to their understanding of a world.

What sort of myths do you guys find important?

[Bardess]

Myths of love and creations. Ilmatar in the "Kalevala"...

[Woodengolem]

Those we have many of. I will look at writing some of them up.

[Lincoln Hills]

If you mean "what sort of myths do you find important in the course of a campaign," I'd say there are two recurring motifs in myths that are significant to PCs on a regular basis. The first is, of course, the "Prophecy of the Chosen One," particularly in cases where the villain or one of the PCs seems to be fulfilling signs of being this Chosen One. The second is the "Tale of the End Times," ideally with several omens or events that presage the End Times so that the PCs can go about thwarting them.

Another potential use of myths in the campaign are those that result in schisms within a faith - or between faiths. This can be useful in providing motivations for Lawful-vs.-Lawful or Good-vs.-Good conflicts in a campaign: even if they're not violent, they can result in mistrust, disunity and all the other things that the forces of evil love to take advantage of.

Myths on the creation of the world tend to be nice to have as background, but have little or no impact on the usual campaign unless the myth includes mentions of a mountain of gold or a forgotten tool left behind by the gods after the creation...

[Ciaran Barnes]

I wrote a paper for a mythology class (17 years ago. Damn...) that was to address an element common to many mythologies. Some of them are creation, the first humans, a celestial's fall or the celestials' war, a flood, and explanation of natural phenomena. I chose to make sacred mountains the subject of my paper. The above list could easily point to judeo Christianity but it is common to many, and almost all.

[Woodengolem]

Well so far we've put up the creation of the Seal against the Gods, and the creation of most of the races.

I'm just mostly in charge of the Mythology and have been trying to find the most interesting stories to do the full right ups for. Figured I'd see where the most common interest lay.

[The black raven]

End of the world prophecy. How will the world end ? (IRL examples : St John's Apocalypse, Ragnarok, the Mayan End of the World)

[Grizzly the Archer]

Myth stories that I have used/ will use:

Creation stories- particular deities starting commotion in the behind the scenes

Prophecy- many types of these, most around a particular hero/ villain issue, a war ( ragnarok style), the future event of a particular person (Oedipus),

Love myths- the Love of two( or more) 'powers' that possibly shouldn't be, or even if it's ok, can cause a dynamic to change.

Item myths: Mjolnir, Odin's spear, Zeus's lightning bolt, so forth.

Location myths : shang-ri-la, mt. Olympus, Atlantis, etc.

The best ones are the forbidden myths: stories that are rare to know, but have some insight into a bigger truth. (fenrir being chained up wasn't well known of a a fact, but was freed in a rare circumstance, which led to ragnarok events involving baldric and such. (most people know of nidhogg the gnawing dragon who would eat the world trees roots, and at the top the raven who would be in the branches. Less people know of the squirrel who kept pestering the dragon, to eat faster, so as to collapse the world tree faster.)

[Saluzi]

The go to scholar on all myth is Joseph Campbell. His contribution to Star Wars really changed it. His most famous concept, The Hero's Journey, which, if you google, will keep you up past midnight complete with plot diagrams. It's the idea of the monomyth. That all myths are expressions and variations of a single master myth.
It's from his most famous book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Not easy reading. My book mark in it is maybe a decade old (but I'll get to it this summer. I promise!!)

[Grizzly the Archer]

Saluzi wrote:

The go to scholar on all myth is Joseph Campbell. His contribution to Star Wars really changed it. His most famous concept, The Hero's Journey, which, if you google, will keep you up past midnight complete with plot diagrams. It's the idea of the monomyth. That all myths are expressions and variations of a single master myth.

It's from his most famous book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Not easy reading. My book mark in it is maybe a decade old (but I'll get to it this summer. I promise!!)

Agreed. Learned most of what I know of mythology from Campbell's writings. The Hero's journey, Monomyth, the 4 encyclopedia books of mythology ( only 2 were finished before his death).

[savior70]

I don't mean to derail this thread, but the Prophecy of the Chosen one has always been played out with a PC as the hero of the story. Well what if it wasn't a PC but the BBGG (Big Bad Good Guy) that was the Chosen One?

The BBGG is the Chosen One of a Neutral Good/Chaotic Good religion, and as part of their Grand Prophecy or whatever, the kingdom or religion that the PC's belong to is declared the enemy or main obstacle of bringing about the Paradise on Earth that the BBGG's religion is promising. The hiccup is that the PC's kingdom/religion is of a similar alignment.

Have you ever been on the receiving end of a CG/NG Holy War?

[Woodengolem]

Big fan of Campbell. I just have limited to time at the moment and am trying to figure which mythological stories are most likely to give me the most interest for the effort.

[Yora]

The most relevant stories are those that explain why certain things are as they are now, and why they could not have turned out differently.
That's the same basic principle by which historians have been working for thousands of years.
First you had this, then something happened, certain people did that in response, and because of this, we have now something or another.

A story that just tells us that some guy did something really cool is just a story. To make it a myth of historic relevance, it needs to be an explaination for the world the people are currently living in.

Why is our town in such a poorly picked place? Why do we have to pay tribute to the emperor every year? Why do we have to allow the other village to graze their sheep in the valley that is much closer to our own village? Sometimes you can give a completely mundane explaination, at other times nobody really knows and makes something up. But for the myth, that's not relevant. The important thing is that it's a story that tells the people to accept that things simply are the way they are.

The myths of Prometheus and Persephone come to mind. (Which both are not versions of the Heroes Journey.) The myth of Prometheus explains why humans have culture and technology and all other animals do not. The myth of Persephone explains why there is winter and it can't be spring all year round.

[Woodengolem]

We have the full mythology fleshed out. I can pretty well tell you anything you'd want to know. But we so far have two myths with full write ups, and a few more in the works.

The Creation of the Seal
The Fall of the Nameless One

We also have some cultural stuff and most of the General Overviews done. But in the next few weeks I'm going to be focusing on the more interest Mythological stories. Try and keep them coming on Mondays.